The present invention relates to a carton and more particularly to a carton which may be easily reclosed.
When a carton for certain products, such as food or similar articles, is opened, the contents of the carton are sometimes not fully consumed so that it is desirable to reclose the carton and store it for future use. There are many cartons in use which have recloseable features. Some such cartons are provided with a tongue-and-slot arrangement on the top wall assembly and are recloseable by inserting the tongue into the slot. One drawback to this type of recloseable carton is that often the tongue and/or slot is damaged when the carton is opened so that the recloseability of the carton is diminished or destroyed. Furthermore, in such recloseable cartons, the top wall is sometimes removed completely during the opening operation, thereby making recloseability of the carton impossible.
Another drawback of existing cartons is that as the contents of the carton are consumed and smaller amounts of the contents remain in the carton, storing of a full-sized almost empty carton wastes storage space.
Several cartons have been developed that provide a removable cap comprising the top wall of the carton and portions of the opposed side and end walls of the carton. This cap can be initially severed from the carton to provide access to the product stored therein. The cap later can be telescopingly slid over the remaining bottom portion of the carton. The prior art carton typically was constructed to facilitate this initial severance of the cap from the bottom of the carton. The prior art constructions have included perforation lines to facilitate this initial severance of the carton cap, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,145,430 which issued to New on Jan. 31, 1939. Other prior art cartons have included arrays of interrupted cut lines in the carton wall to form tear strips in the paperboard material. A force could be exerted on the tear strip to severe the tear strip from the carton, thereby dividing the carton into a cap and a base. Still other prior art cartons of this general type have incorporated tear strings into the paperboard material to facilitate the initial opening of the carton.
Certain of the prior art cartons have included a plurality of generally parallel arrays of paperboard severance means disposed intermediate the top and bottom of the carton. This structure enables the carton to become progressively smaller as the material therein is used.
The prior art recloseable cartons of the general type described above also typically have included structures to facilitate the telescoping remounting of the carton cap onto the base after the initial opening of the carton. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,251,283 which issued to Johnson on Aug. 5, 1941 shows fold lines adjacent to each corner of the carton base to facilitate the effective pinching together of the carton base to define an area smaller than the cap. Canadian Pat. No. 453,995 which issued to Richardson on Jan. 11, 1949 shows a complicated array of fold lines formed in the opposed end panels of the carton base to again facilitate the pinching together of the carton bottom. Still another arrangement of score lines is shown in British Patent Specification No. 369,441 which issued to Hartman and is dated Mar. 24, 1932. U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,251 which issued to McFarland on June 15, 1965 shows a more complicated arrangement of overlapping panels to facilitate this telescoping mounting of the carton cap. The structure shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,251 appears to utilize an excessive amount of paperboard material. A more recent reference showing foldlines at the corners of a recloseable carton is U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,324 which issued to Forbes Jr. on Oct. 2,1984.
The above described references either: (1) utilize excessive paper board material; (2) yield an undesirable or ineffective severence between the carton top and base; or (3) utilize a confusing and partly ineffective arrangement of foldlines to facilitate the telescoping mounting of the carton top on to the base.